


Our Grand Finale

by orphan_account



Category: Electioneering, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Broken Families, Electioneering - Freeform, F/M, M/M, POV Alternating, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Remix
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 00:44:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: 1952. Dennis Reynolds is a local politician with a failing marriage whose run for comptroller is dead in the water. He is also an unreliable narrator.A remix ofElectioneeringfrom the perspective of everyone else.





	1. Prologue: 1950

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many, many, many thanks to underwooding for writing the original Electioneering. I haven't stopped thinking about it since it was published seven months ago. I have read it many times, and it is a treat. Go check it out!

The pitter-patter of rain echoed around the claustrophobic room where Maureen stood in the last moments before her wedding. A blue bouquet was gripped in her sweaty hands. Her mother smiled as she wrapped a pearl necklace around Maureen’s neck. She had tears in her eyes as she cupped Maureen’s face. Maureen’s father stood solemnly beside her.  
  
“Beautiful,” her mother said.  
  
Four months into her pregnancy, Maureen didn’t feel very beautiful. Her stomach churned, and her feet ached. The heels she’d bought for the wedding barely fit. Thank God her mother had also been pregnant when she walked down the aisle. Her dress was designed to cover up a baby bump – six months for her mother. She and her father had been in love, and he made an honest woman of her. They married in Vermont in the wintertime. Both of them glowed with happiness in their wedding photo.  
  
By the time her father became the mayor, he’d forgotten all about marriage for love. Maureen’s engagement was political and long, borne of a broken arrangement between Dee Reynolds and Maureen’s brother, William. All for the best - Dee and William were both raging alcoholics, and the resulting marriage would have been a match made in hell.  
  
Maureen smoothed her dress, and stood up taller. The music began to play. Her mother pecked her on the cheek.  
  
“I love you, sweetie,” she said as she left. Her father grabbed her arm, and opened the door. Maureen took a big breath, and exited the room to walk down the aisle.  
  
The cathedral they chose for the wedding sat several hundred guests. Family members, business partners, politicians, and elite friends sat in the pews. Maureen pasted a smile on her face as she walked, careful to not trip on her train. Her fiance didn’t watch her walk down the aisle. Dennis stood rigor-mortis stiff with a waxy smile as if his preparations for the wedding had included embalming.  
  
Her heart pounded as she approached the altar. She handed off her bouquet to her maid of honor, and her father let go of her arm to sit down. Dennis finally turned his head to look at her. He looked her body up and down, and for a few seconds, his smile relaxed. He looked in her eyes, and it tightened again. He turned his head a little to look over her right shoulder.  
  
“Dearly beloved. . .”  
  
Maureen tuned out her childhood priest, and inspected her husband closely. Dark circles were under his eyes, and his skin was sallow. He was hungover, and probably had stayed up late screwing a call girl or three. Hopefully he wore a condom so she wouldn’t get siff again when they consummated tonight.  
  
The priest said, “Maureen and Dennis, have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?"  
  
“I have,” said Dennis in a tight voice.  
  
“I have,” said Maureen.  
  
"Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?" the priest said.  
  
Dennis nodded. “I am.”  
  
“I am,” said Maureen, nodding as well.  
  
"Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?" said the priest.  
  
Dennis paused. His eyes flickered down to her stomach, then back to where they had settled before.  
  
“I am,” he said.

“I am,” said Maureen.  
  
“Since it is your intention to enter into the covenant of Holy Matrimony, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church,” said the priest.  
  
Dennis stood up straighter, performative, and joined hands with her. He looked out to the church - his audience.  
  
“I, Dennis, take you, Maureen, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”  
  
Maureen looked up at his profile and said, with all the meaning he couldn’t muster, “ I, Maureen, take you, Dennis, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”  
  
“May the Lord in his kindness strengthen the consent you have declared before the Church, and graciously bring to fulfillment his blessing within you. What God joins together, let no one put asunder.”


	2. 1952

_“Here am I with chhh in a world of chhhh dancing to the chhhh we loved when chhhhhhh. . .”_

Mac banged on the radio once, twice, three times until the static disappeared. They fished this one out of the trash several months before to replace the last one they fished out of the trash. It came into their possession with one antenna and terrible reception. Drove Mac up the wall, but his manager said that bad ambiance was better than none. The greedy bastard hadn’t gone on to explain what ambiance meant, but he was dead wrong that bad. . .whatever was better than no whatever.

The radio went to static again. Frustrated, Mac turned it off too hard. Its dial popped off into his hand. God _dam_ mit. He dropped the dial to the floor, and kicked it under the bar. Maybe now his boss would shell out for a decent radio instead of sending him out on dumpster dives. The bar across the street drained them of customers when they bought a floor-sized Zenith. Most of their customers nowadays were career drunks and old people. It was a treat that they’d been chosen for the beef and beer tonight – thank God for good ol’ drunkard Benny with the deaf and dumb brother.

Out of the crowd walked a red-faced, sweaty man. His curly hair had flyaway pieces, and his mouth was twisted into a grimace. Clean-cut, shaven, expensive suit – a regular. Dennis Reynolds. Strange – this was his usual 1AM haunt. Must have something to do with campaigning.

“Care for a drink?” asked Mac. He grabbed the Jameson – Dennis’s favorite – and a glass. Mac inspected it for spots as he brought it over. One of Dennis’s hobbies was complaining about how dirty the glasses were in this bar – an unneeded annoyance following a misbehaving radio. Due to his ‘bad is better than none’ policy, his manager wouldn’t fire him for socking Dennis in the jaw. However, he’d get stuck on toilet duty, which didn’t pay well enough to get by without stealing from the register. Not that he didn’t steal from the register anyway, but _having_ to do it was a real pain in the ass.

Dennis eyed the Jameson, thirsty.

“Not tonight,” he lied. “Much as I’d like to take you up on the offer.”

Routine. Dennis was in the ‘career drunk’ Hall of Fame. He’d give in before long.

“You look like you could use it,” said Mac, swishing the bottle between his thumb and forefinger. Dennis smiled.

“I certainly could,” he said.

Mac poured a glass for himself, and one for Dennis. He pushed the drink towards Dennis, close enough that the glass touched his fingertips. Mac tossed his back, wincing. Jameson was foul, but coercing Dennis into anything else for his first drink was next to impossible.

Dennis stroked the glass with his fingertips, and swallowed. His wife yelled at him when he came home drunk – a fact he’d slurred in Mac’s direction dozens of times. Mac gave him a knowing look, poured another shot, and gulped it down. He wasn’t in the business of saving broken marriages.

“Just one,” said Dennis, grasping the glass. His eyes were on the bottle. “Have to retain my image. I’m on the campaign trail.”

Mac grabbed a beer, and used the counter as a bottle-opener. He snickered.

“I don’t think a few drinks are going to ruin your image more than adultery,” said Mac.

Dennis clenched his hand around his drink, white knuckled. He downed it without wincing. “You’re white trash. What the hell do you know about image?”

Mac’s stomach clenched at the insult. He resisted the urge to spit in the glass as he poured a shot. When he slammed it onto the counter, half of it sloshed on the table. Same price for half as much.

“Nothing, but I know you’ll feel better if you get nice and drunk.”

 Dennis rubbed his eye in a tired way. He took the shot, and passed the glass back to Mac.

“Two more. And if you mention my reputation again, I’ll have you fired.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Click clack! Click clack! Click!_

Maureen startled awake at the noise. Someone was trying to unlock the door. She checked her clock – 11:30 – and scowled. Her soon-to-be ex-husband was home late again.

 _Thunk, thunk, thunk!_ She winced at his harsh footsteps as he ascended the stairs. Sloppy fingers struggled with the knob on Brian’s bedroom door. Dennis was breathing heavily through his mouth – drunk. Of course. Maureen got out of bed, put on her slippers, and crept over to the door. She cracked it open, and watched her husband make his way into their son’s room. Dennis slumped against the wall across from Brian’s crib.

“Hey, buddy,” he murmured. “’Been a while, huh?”

Brian didn’t stir – thank God. It took hours to get him to sleep, a fact Dennis never retained when he was drunk.

“Your mom been feeding you lies about me too?”

Dennis burped wetly. He shook his head.

“Don’t believe any of em. I slept with. . .way less prostitutes than she says.”

Uneasy feet stumbled over to the crib. Maureen held her breath as he propped himself up via the fragile wooden bars. He’d already broken one crib; she didn’t want to have to find another replacement.

“You ended up so handsome. Got way more of me in you than your mother.”

He grabbed a stuffed toy off the ground, and put it in the crib.

“I got this one for you,” he said. “Don’t forget that. I bought all this stuff – toys, house, car, and your mom too. She doesn’t own anything, especially not you.”

He burped again.

 “Crazy bitch thinks she can take everything. You’re mine.”

Maureen’s stomach clenched with anger. Brian wasn’t some trinket to be won, and the implication was why Dennis had no right asking for custody.

“G’night, buddy,” he said on a stage whisper. “Dream about me.”

She winced as he slammed the door behind him. Mercifully, Brian stayed asleep. Maureen stepped out into the hallway. She cleared her throat – they were going to have some words.

“Home before midnight,” she said, folding her arms. “How unusual.”

Dennis rolled his eyes, and walked away. He shrugged off his jacket, and hung it up on the stairway’s rail as if it was a coat hanger. His dismissiveness was another punch in the gut.

“I went to the reception at St. Patrick’s Club,” he said. “Said hello to Father Mara, shook a few hands, left early.”

“Early? Brian and I go to bed at seven-o-clock!” said Maureen.

Dennis’s hazy eyes didn’t hide the cold look he gave her.

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” he said.

“You always owe me an explanation,” said Maureen, stomach boiling with anger. “I am your wife.”

“Not for long,” he said. He hung his hat on top of his jacket, and loosened his tie. There was a bruise on his neck. He’d been with someone else tonight. Maureen grabbed his arm; her nails dug into his elbow.

“I’m your wife and the mother of your child. You need to be kind to me,” said Maureen.

“Women aren’t owed kindness. It’s earned,” said Dennis. He gave her hand a scathing look; it was broken by him squeezing his eyes shut. The spins.

“I’ve done more than enough to earn it,” said Maureen. “When was the last time you saw our son when he was awake?”

A silence punctuated by heavy breathing.

“Why does it matter?” he said.

Maureen squeezed his elbow tighter; his eyes jolted open.

“I hear what you say to our son at night,” said Maureen. She breathed out a shaky breath. “You can’t have him. Not if you talk to him like that.”

Dennis yanked his arm away; his skin scraped under her nails. Unbalanced, he slumped against the wall.

“You bitch! I swear to God, if you try to take him from me –”

Maureen flexed her fingers, sore from their tight grip. Her heart pitter-pattered like the rain on their wedding day. She should have known.

“What’ll you do? How else could you possibly hurt me?” said Maureen.

Exhaustion hung heavy on her shoulders. Tonight, yesterday, last week, two years. Twenty years old with lines on her forehead and a baby that cried and cried. Dennis didn’t bless him with a sweet disposition.

“How else could _I_ hurt _you_?” said Dennis, seething. “I am losing an election due to your smear campaign!”

Maureen stifled a shocked laugh.

“Are you joking? You’re losing the election because you keep getting caught with prostitutes!”

Dennis squeezed his eyes shut, and hiccupped.

“You’re calling the cops on me. I know it.”

Maureen buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God. I married a lunatic.”

Dennis opened his eyes, and glared at her. “I am your husband. Watch your mouth.”

“Facts aren’t insults, Dennis!” cried Maureen, throwing her hands into the air.

Her husband pushed away from the wall, stumbling. “I don’t have to deal with this bullshit,” he said. Dennis threw on his jacket, and zipped it up with fumbling fingers. “I’m going to my sister’s house. Don’t call.”

Dennis made his way unsteadily down the stairs. He grabbed his keys from the hook.

“Put those back. You’re in no state to drive. Call a cab,” said Maureen.

Dennis gave her a withering look. “Go to Hell.”

He slammed the door behind him. Upstairs, Brian let out a sharp cry. Maureen sat down on the stairs, buried her face in her knees, and tried to choke back her own.


End file.
